


The Man with Three Names

by beknighted



Series: Illuminations Come Too Late [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Thor: Ragnarok - Fandom
Genre: Asgard, Brothers, Character Death, Family Feels, Feels, Frigga (Marvel) Feels, Gods, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki One Shot, Odin (Marvel)'s Good Parenting, One Shot, POV Loki (Marvel), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Compliant, Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Spoilers, the first of many rambling expulsions of Loki Philosophizing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 07:10:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14051661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beknighted/pseuds/beknighted
Summary: The moment Odin dies is the beginning of a breathless catastrophe. In the moments before, Loki feels a change.





	The Man with Three Names

Frigga had told him that the power of changing form was that you only ever showed your true image to the people that you trusted. _Few have that opportunity,_ she said. _It is something far stronger than honesty. When you are older, you will understand the simple potency of such a choice._ And he does understand, now. He understands in the aftermath of a long childhood that there is a deeper meaning to what she said. The Lie, as he thinks of it; he attaches it deeply to Odin and loosely to Frigga, as men often do when they feel betrayed by their parents. 

His true image, Loki Laufeyson knows, is borne of a hellish landscape of frost and wind; nothing fair and good can come of that place. Nothing soft or kind, or fit to live in an Asgardian House or Asgardian clothes, or wear a crown of anything but ice.

His true image, Loki Odinson knows, is a king; not a great king, nor even a good king, but the sort men fear and love and, more often than not, forget about. Because after enough time, no one wants to hate the king. Easier to forget, or pity him for believing the Lie, for his malice. So he rots on his throne, wondering if he remembered to leave some friendly face alive to talk to. 

His true image, Loki Friggason knows, is a boy; a boy who hero-worshiped his father and envied his brother, a child of silk and a rosy temper and a quiet voice, who loves best twilight and reading on the bough of an old tree, pelting acorns at the odd passerby. 

 

The moment Odin dies is the beginning of a breathless catastrophe. In the moments before, Loki feels a change. 

The illusion flickers, as if tempted to lift. For a moment, he is no longer an Asgardian, if he ever had been. It had been Odin’s spell--perhaps Odin’s pure will--that kept him the form he is when he does not try to appear any different. That is, the pale skin and eyes of a man who spends his sunlight hours indoors, a boy who girls did not look at except for when he thought they weren’t--too sharp, or too soft. 

_A choice._

The moment before Odin dies, Loki feels the sting of another betrayal. Odin is absurd. To keep a baby, pluck it from its death in cold darkness, all for the sake of its species and its diplomatic possibility--but to be so repulsed by the truth of its form that he expended strength on a powerful spell to keep the truth from the world, at least until Odin no longer had to look at it. 

_No, Mother,_ Loki thinks bitterly, in that singular moment, that moment before Odin ascends and dissolves like sunlight. _My image was never my choice to make; it was a choice already made._

But Loki feels the flickering of the illusion, feels a sudden rush of ambivalent emotion, a kind of understanding. It is no betrayal; at least, not like the former. It is a _question._ Though Loki stands on the side of Odin that he cannot see, ever the unseen son and the forgotten king, he realizes that he is piercingly seen and remembered. Silently, Odin is asking him--in that slowing of time before he vanishes from the world forever--do you want to remain as you are? 

Loki thinks of that mad hatred towards Jotunheim when he had first learned of the Lie, and the truth. That desire to tear it apart and burn a hole in space where it had been. He thinks of how easily that hatred could have turned inward on himself, if the glamoured skin of Asgard had forsaken him. _Always so perceptive, about everyone but yourself._ Loki thinks of the mercy of it, for the first time. That even after he had banished Odin, stripped him of his power--even after he had given truth to the Lie and become everything Odin had feared he might--even after, even now, he still wears the face of Asgard. He is allowed the Lie, to wear the crown of a Lie. 

It hurts his mind to contort it so, to conjure that kind of understanding of the Allfather for perhaps the first and only time. 

Odin is asking him, do you want to remain as you are? There is no question that he is not Loki Odinson. He has not been for years, and will be never again. That is the prince in exile, fallen from a broken bridge between worlds. And yet. _I love you, my sons._

He has a choice, now. Son of Laufey. Son of Frigga. To wear the truth, or wear the merciful lie. 

In the heartbeat before Odin vanishes, Loki makes up his mind. 

_Kneel,_ says Hela, in all of her damaged greed and lust for power, and Loki sees himself as Odin had. Just a flickering, like an illusion tempted to lift. 

_That’s what you always wanted,_ says Thor, that he and Loki might never see each other again, and Loki sees himself as Frigga had. A boy in the twilight, trying by some such trick or diversion to get his brother’s attention. _You could be more._

The moment Odin dies is the beginning of a breathless catastrophe, but in the moments after, Loki Friggason takes up his name and his own chosen image. His selective truth, the son of Asgard. And when at last his path brings him to the side of his brother’s throne--he does not covet it. 

He looks on as one who will be king, but not yet. He has time.


End file.
